Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday March 06, 2006 @08:32PM
from the utterly-speechless dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Capital Hill Blue is reporting that recently a retired Texas schoolteacher and his wife had a little run in with the Department of Homeland Security. The crime? Paying down some debt. From the article: 'The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522. And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable. [...] They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.'"

This isn't surprising. I work for a regional bank. Every employee is required to undergo training to know "what to look for". Doesn't matter if you are a teller, or a computer help desk operator. Anything over a certain dollar limit must be reported. As time goes on, the threshold has lowered. Pay off your house early? Gets reported. Large deposit? gets recorded. And anything overseas gets more scrutiny than J-Lo's panty lines.

The training creeped me out. the uber-patriotic person assigned to train our group was so into it. 3/4 of our group thought it was great... bringing down meth dealers who weren't smart enough to structure their money better. In fact, however, structuring is a crime as well... Go just below the radar one too many times, and you can be charged, eevn if there is no illegal activity behind the generation of money.

And, I would be wise to post AC (I won't, so this message might get more credibility) as advising someone how to avoid setting off the bells and whistles is a crime too.

I am a consultant for a large national bank and just took this Money Laundering course. Wow, was it creepy. Yes, if you are a stupid crook you will get caught. If you are a normal human being you can get really nailed.

The weird bit about this class was the continual referece to getting to know you customer. Which is of course imposible. So they set out all these questions and senerios to help you "GUESS" if there was a problem.

Howdy from a fellow West Virginian! I do know about WV and 4WD (since I own one too). But to keep this ontopic....

"AFAIK, that did not raise any red flags. If it had made trouble, I know the phone numbers of my senator and my reps and I have the freedom plan. Somewhat akin to saying I've got a shotgun and a shovel, any questions?"

That doesn't mean you weren't reported. All it means is that nothing came up to require further investigation. I used to work for DHS (FEMA before that and now I work with the State) and can verify that the "super spooks" in the law enforcement part of DHS are paranoid to the point of needing good drugs. You were checked but nothing tripped the "this is someone to watch" flags. What tripped it for this couple was the fact that it was a credit card they were paying and the way they paid it was "abnormal". What I want to see reported (but we will never know) is what ELSE tripped the further investigation. It isn't just one thing like this but usually a string of things out of the ordinary.

I used to work in a money transfer company in th Uk and I know that any transfer above a certain amount has to be reported.

That part is straight forward, however, any customer who acts is a way which can be considered as suspicious also has to be reported.

What's suspicious, oh all sorts of things, there's a long list of actions which could be considered as possibly suspicious and the final things on the list is, of course, "Any other actions which could be considered suspicious". With a video showing a person who is acting nervous while looking as if he is trying to decide whether or not to transfer some money as a good example.

Keep in mind that not reporting any of these cases is considered a crime, for which the company could be heavily fined or even closed down and it's managers jailed. This of course results in the company reporting as many people as possible in order to escape from the bad side of this ill-defined law. Of course the Customs and Excise commision hardly ever follows up on any of these reports, but it does mean that if at some point some one decides to get you for money laundering, there are probably already more than enough reports made by nervous bankers to put you away for quite a while.

The reason why these people noticed was that they saw that the cheque had cleared their account a few days ago, but the credit card company hadn't changed their balance.... So they started asking questions.. like: where's the $6K that you just took out of my account?

This also has a nice bonus for the credit card company... if they hold off crediting the $6000 for a week, at 15%, that comes to about $17... or $75/month (if they can make the 'investigation' last that long).

Don't act so surprised; neither are the police. Being "investigated" doesn't entitle you to any sort of notification, because it doesn't mean anything. If you get charged with something, then you get to see all the evidence, confront your accusers, all the rest of that good stuff. But you do not have any right to know when you're being "investigated" -- and this is not a new development, there is no basis in law for it traditionally.

So don't point the Big Brother finger at Homeland Security as if they're somehow unique; you could be under investigation by any number of agencies, including your local police, and not neccessarily be aware of it. Unless they're going to charge you with something, they don't have any reason to inform you or anyone else about it.

I freelance as a consultant for film. I fell into the gig by accident: I'd written a film for a producer (I was writing movies on the side at the time - doing pharma research during the day) and he needed me to do the financials for the film as well. He thought the financials were thorough enough to recommend me to his (rich) friends who were also looking to invest in film. They'd hire me to evaluate projects both as a line producer as well as market analysis in terms of prospects, etc.

My first check from this endeavor was more money than I'd ever had at any single time. I was on set, so I had the money wired into the account.

While on set (out of the country) I tried using my atm card. No dice. I couldn't log into my online banking. When I got home and went to the bank, I got the suspicious "wait right here" while the CS person went and got a manager. I told them what it was from and that it was legit. They did a background check. My account was frozen for 30 days while they checked it out. I got a business account after that - but occasionally, credits to the account are routinely frozen, especially if I'm dealing with a new client who hasn't wired in anything before. Apparently, entertainment shell companies are a favored vehicle of money launderers.

This has been going on for many decades. The systems was started in order to catch organized crime and drug dealers. In the 1970's my grandfather paid cash for a car, approx. $7,000. He received a letter from the IRS asking where the cash came from. I believe his letter back to the IRS said something like "From my savings account you nosy SOB."

Just replace Anti-Soviet and Counter-Revolutionary with the word Terrorist and you'll get something that is uncannily similar to this:

ASA - Anti-Soviet Agitation.
KRD - Counter-Revolutionary Activity.
KRTD - Counter-Revolutionary Trotskyite Activity (And that T made the life of a zek in camp much harder.)
PSh - Suspicion of Espionage (Espionage that went beyond the bounds of suspicion was handed over to a tribunal.)
SVPSh - Contacts leading (!) to Suspicion of Espionage.
KRM - Counter-Revolutionary Thought.
VAS - Dissemination of Anti-Soviet Sentiments.
SOE - Socially Dangerous Element.
SVE - Socially Harmful Element.
PD - Criminal Activity (a favourite accusation against former camp inmates if there was nothing else to be used against them)
Chs - Member of a Family (of a person convicted under one of the foregoing "letter" categories)

* n.b. the abbreviations may not match up with the descriptions because they are acronyms for russian words.

The above list was taken from Solzhenitsyn's study on the Gulag. They were criminal codes [cyberussr.com] (mainly Article 58 [wikipedia.org]) used by the soviets as reasons to send people the off to the Gulag. Note that the first two (ASA [wikipedia.org] and KRD) were used very liberally, for example, some engineers were warning that a particular railway system was not going to work. They were slammed with KRD and tossed in the Gulag. Later on the system failed as they had warned. They were brought out to fix it but put back as soon in when it was done.

Talk about complete bullshit. It's garbage like this that makes people distrust their government.

Let's see.. If I make a transaction over $10k, there's paperwork to be done and now the government has the Eye of Sauron on me. Hmm, I think I'll just avoid that headache and make two transactions on two different days instead. Alarm! Alarm! You are now being taken to Castle Wolfenstein!

All this does is persuade criminals to NOT use banks at all and fucks over the legit folks. Typical end result of Big Brothering.

This one is so easy. Would you rather (a) risk the chance of being struck by lighting, or (b) carry around a 100 lb faraday cage all day, every day for the rest of your life? Funny that the American government is able to sell the faraday cage as the right choice, especially with side benefit that they sell faraday cages. And so many people are just lining up to get one. It doesn't even matter to some if the occasional one is plastic. Why bother checking? As long as people feel safe because the government told them they did the right thing. Good for them.

Well. What's wrong with a faraday cage. If gravity doesn't affect you, then you have nothing to fear. The cage will protect you from lightning strikes and will only weigh down the evil, gravity prone, electro-terrorist scum.

Yes, we've all heard that same tired argument that's constantly used to justify every new government policy that encroaches on our rights as individuals. Frankly, I'm not mad at the government for being unable to stop the 9/11 attacks. Absolute security is unattainable, and the increased security we gain from capitulating to fear-mongering government officials isn't worth the trade-offs. I'm really more upset at our government leaders for their foreign policy decisions that elicits hostility from people of other nations and motivates such attacks.

Frankly, I'm not mad at the government for being unable to stop the 9/11 attacks.

Frankly, I'm mad as hell about it considering that they had all sorts of warning signs that either got lost in the bureaucracy or ignored by the higher-ups in the Bush administration.

The sad truth about 9/11 is that they had ample warning and could have prevented it with the laws in place without the need for any big brotherish "Patriot Act".

The sad truth about post 9/11 is that you could solve the airline threat by simply keeping guns off the planes (was already done) and fortifying the cockpit door. That's it! Problem solved! No need for TSA, no need to show ID to get on the plane, none of that!

Basically our Government completely failed us and now it wants more power. People should have been asking why they weren't using the power they had effectively in the first place -- instead of why they need more.

There's an old saying that you can measure the freedom of a society by counting the laws. (This isn't true of course, a society in which the only law is "Obey Leader and his Enforcers at all times" isn't terribly free, but there's a point to the saying anyway.)

Once you hit a critical threshold in the number of laws and complexity of the situations they govern, then it's impossible for any citizen, even any lawyer, to know the law, even just the areas of the law that affect "normal" day to day life. We've long since passed this point.

Under such a system, you may know of many individual specific things that are illegal, but in general when presented with an unkown situation, there's a moment of vertigo. You don't know how to act. Now in a free society with limited, known, laws, you'd always know what you can and can't do. There's a list out there of prohibited actions and their associated penalties. You know these actions, and as long as you aren't doing them, you're in the clear. However in a society with millions of laws, you can't think this way. You either have to carefully research an unfamiliar action or (much more commonly) just behave like everyone else is behaving and assume, since they aren't getting arrested, that you're acting in accordance with the law.

For example: last weekend I was in a state park, walking around off the trail. I came across an old, decaying building (probably pre-1900) and went in and explored, opening what doors an cupboards were left, looking into the exposed rooms, checking out the rusting fixtures etc. Was I in violation of some law or park rule? I'll never know. Perhaps if an official had come along, they could have given me some ticket. Hell, it could have been a $50,000 fine and a year in jail. I'd have contested, but if the law was on the books, ultimately I'd have no defense. Ignorance of the law is not an alibi.

Further complicating things, consider that there are tons of laws on the books that aren't enforced. Little things you'd never think of. Even things that make for amusing trivia. There are a whole lot of places in the country where using dirty language around a female is illegal. Pornography is still *very* illegal in the US. The supreme court basically decided that the law couldn't be enforced, but it's still on the books. It would only take a fall of the gavel in washington, and suddenly every adolescent boy with an internet connection is a felon.

Combine this with pervasive surveilance and you have a very scary situation. When most people, whether they know it or not are guilty of imprisonable crimes, and the government has eyes everywhere, then it doesn't take any actual voted-upon action for your society to transform swiftly and suddenly into a very different kind of place. No law has to change, and suddenly you're living in a very different society.

It's effectively illegal to leave your house without a government issued ID anymore. A friend of mine (a republican no less) was riding her bike during the 2004 RNC in New York City. She wasn't part of, or even close to the protests, but she looks "weird" she's young, she's not white, and she has tatoos. She ran a stopsign on her bike (pretty much standard practice for cyclists at 4-way stops) and got stopped by a cop. He would have let her go, but she didn't have an ID on her. As a result, she spent 18 hours sitting on a hard cement floor with her hands plastic-tied behind her, with no access to food, water, or legal counsel.

She never got her bike back, and her suit against the NYPD was thrown out of court, as apparently, they were acting 100% within the Patriot act.

When the Soviet Union was still around, some people (generally people losing a political debate) would say things like "So why don't you move to Russia where you'll get thrown in a cell for not carrying your goddamn papers."

"It's effectively illegal to leave your house without a government issued ID anymore. A friend of mine (a republican no less) was riding her bike during the 2004 RNC in New York City. She wasn't part of, or even close to the protests, but she looks "weird" she's young, she's not white, and she has tatoos. She ran a stopsign on her bike (pretty much standard practice for cyclists at 4-way stops) and got stopped by a cop. He would have let her go, but she didn't have an ID on her. As a result, she spent 18 hours sitting on a hard cement floor with her hands plastic-tied behind her, with no access to food, water, or legal counsel.

She never got her bike back, and her suit against the NYPD was thrown out of court, as apparently, they were acting 100% within the Patriot act."

Take lots of laws (designed to "protect" you),
mix with surveillance
add some patriotism,
chop in belief in divine right to rule,
let it simmer under suppression of opposition
bake it under external threat (fake one will do if real one isn't available)
Serve with men in uniforms

Nice article, and it goes into just enough detail to explain how the system works.

I think the summary is.The person was informed that cash movement of over $10k has to be reported.

They then stop their normal legitimate pattern to avoid this reporting. In this case they were clearly trying to avoid the reporting system. They not only dropped most of their transactions below $10k, but also made deposits through an intermediary to avoid detection.

It would be similarly suspicious if someone went out of their way to use the store exit that didn't have the RFID tag sensors, but ONLY after being told that exit didn't have them.

The reasoning behind this is because, generally, if you have that much debt, you do *not* have the means to pay it off. The reasoning continues that people deep in debt can get desperate--and indeed, they do. Many financial crimes have been born out of pure desperation.

Therefore, they generally reason that any time you suddenly have a large pile of cash, they want to know where you got it from (the implication being that you might have stolen, embezzeled, or acquired it from some other illegal activity).

But yeah, it's not exactly a good thing for your privacy. Even so, there are enough laws on the books that merely having too much *cash* is a bad thing. I think that you can be accused of drug trafficing or something silly for having more than $10k in cash, too, but IANAL and that may just be some random Internet rumour.

The reasoning behind this is because, generally, if you have that much debt, you do *not* have the means to pay it off. The reasoning continues that people deep in debt can get desperate--and indeed, they do. Many financial crimes have been born out of pure desperation.

And yet it's not a crime to send these people credit card applications. Hello debt slavery!

Usually it's money laundering you get accused of, and a HUGE number of money laundering cases (legit ones) are drug related. I want to say the limit is either $7k or 10k cash.

When I was a kid, I went with a friend and his dad to buy a Porche. He went to the bank first and got out a load a cash to make his down payment. If he had been pulled over on the drive from the bank to the car dealership why should he have had to explain anything to anyone?

Technically it SHOULD be an easy charge to beat, IF you got the money legitimately. If you didn't, or don't have a paper trail ("My friend loaned me $10 grand for...."), have fun!

The problem is that we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. You don't have to explain anything. Unless they have PROOF that you did something illegal, keep your mouth shut.

Even though a credit card company should not be loaning money to people in such circumstances. Being that they are a business rather than a charity.

Loaning money to someone who can never pay it back is a very good business tactic. It means that they keep on paying interest payments for the rest of their lives, usually totalling much more than the loan was in the first place. Apart from that, it gives the jerks a feeling of power over the poor bastards so owned.

It is completely immoral and evil, of course, but when has that stopped a business from doing it ?

So all the Raynd-worshippers can relax: this is not charity, but a particularly nasty and deceitfull plan on furthering the business owners self-interest at the expense of others.

As opposed to winning a lottery, having long term savings mature, selling things, having a relative die, etc...

I don't want my government looking into my financial affairs either. But you have to understand the letter and spirit of the law against structuring. You are *not* flagged simply for depositing $9999.99. You are flagged if

(a) You show up at the bank with $15k, (b) The teller asks you to fill out the CTR form, (c) and you try to restructure your deposit to avoid the CTR requirement.

You *know* that some law like this had to be on the books to try to minimally enforce filing requirements.

If you don't like it, don't try to deposit all at once. Problem solved.

Exactly, today the Government can detain you without evidence of a crime, they just have to think that you might commit a crime in the future. Watch the "Power Of Nightmares" movie [archive.org] -- free download, if you have some time. I just saw it yesterday , it is quite enlightening and educational. Warning: it is a 3 hour thing!

... And the attackers of the Sep 11 2001 weren't hiding their identity at all or borrowing from other people (there have been some clouds around the real identity of Muhammad Atta though, the family Atta denies the person being their [missing] son).

The interesting and most Anti-PATRIOT thing about the suicide bombers of Sep 11 2001 was that they were just normal. They were regular students at a regular university in Germany. They had regular student visa for both Germany and U.S., they were using their regular passports, they were openly going to their preferred mosque.

They did nothing to hide their tracks. Of course they wanted a good credit report on their credit cards. Of course they didn't want to be chased by debt collectors. Of course they didn't want the cheques they were writing to bounce. Basicly all they did was being good citizens. And that should scare anyone who thinks waging a War on Terror might be a good idea. If you didn't to anything wrong, you are a prime suspect.

My grandparents and parents were intensely aware of their privacy and its erosion. For their generations though a good deal of that was considered just a side-effect of social or scientific progress.

Microphones became more sensitive? Well, of course some jackass was going to use it to record you against your will, jackasses have been around and will be around.

The government specifically using and developing new technologies and techniques for spying on its own citizens? THAT was something to worry about... 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Fountainhead, Anthem...

My great grandmother was interrogated by the SS for 12 hours on a rumor that she was a sympathizer to the bank president who had been turned in on suspicion of not being a good member of "the party" which later turned out to be entirely false and propogated by the local priest who was a toady to the Nazis and coveted the man's house. His reward for the "information" was of course the house but my great grandmother lost some of her good standing in the community and the president "disappeared".

Privacy matters to my family even if we haven't done anything illegal.

You're just flat wrong. You're not alone, though, a lot of other people believe this, too. It's part of an attempt to make the HUAC [wikipedia.org], and similar activities that try to hunt out "the bad guys" without regard to civil rights, seem like a positives, not amoral attacks on the foundations of this country. I'm not saying you believe that, but this is one of the beliefs of people that support the Patriot Act and other attacks on our freedoms.

Read about the Smith Act [wikipedia.org] passed in 1940. Admit you're a member of the Communist party, a party which was equated with meaning "overthrowing and destroying the government of the United States by force and violence", and you could go to jail. Nearly 200 members of the Communist Party stood trial, and many were convicted, just because they were members of the organization, not because of any other action.

Also, the famous "Hollywood Ten" never said they were or were not part of the Communist party, yet they were convicted for contempt of Congress and were blacklisted.

Go back a little further and look at the Red Scare of the '20s, where things were even worse.

What you have to realise is none of this means anything. So homeland security is notified. So they have a look at your records.

You have a very naive attitude. Homeland Security is staffed by employees, who are evaluated on their productivity. There may not be a quota, but they are expected to show results. Now imagine the homesec guy looking into your records is behind--he's had a string of duds, or was lazy. Guess what--he's going to find a way to make your case a viable one. 18 months and $50,000 in lawyer costs later, you win your case. Doesn't matter to the homesec guy, because his semi-annual review 14 months ago treated your case a live high-probable laundering crime.

Understand why the law (real law, not fear-mongering homeland security bullshit) generally frowns on police fishing expeditions? There's just too much temptation to force a case through that shouldn't be. And yes, that's what this is--fishing.

Just to put things into perspective, you have a greater chance of being killed or injured by your own car than you do suffering death or injury from a terrorist attack. Can you say, overreact?

Just to put things into perspective, you have a greater chance of being killed or injured by your own car than you do suffering death or injury from a terrorist attack.

Which is why you need a driver's license, are required to wear seat belts, can't drive before a certain age, and have to drive a vehicle that meets government safety standards. It's also why you're required to have regular inspections, and why you can be pulled over and ticketed for driving with faulty equipment, or arrested and jailed for driving under the influence or even just recklessly.

In other words, not a good example to support your argument. (Which I basically agree with otherwise.)

But this all misses the point. Where is the rest of this story? All we know from this article, factually (or at least according to these people, who may or may not be telling the truth), is that one is a retired schoolteacher and they were contacted by homeland security because of a large payment they made. We also know that this guy has a lot of anger towards the government that may or may not have been caused by this action by DHS, or it may have existed previously and manifested itself in other ways. We don't know for how long or why these people were under surveillance by DHS - and some people have pretty good reasons for being under surveillance. (Yes, even Americans - remember Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols?)

Now, if large payments alone were a trigger for a DHS audit, you can bet it would be front page news. Millions of people every year make large payments into their IRA's or on their home mortgages at various times for tax purposes, or other reasons. I myself have made payments larger than $6,000 on both my credit cards and student loans, and I can assure you that's not my normal payment amount - but I have yet to be contacted by DHS. Why is that? The only difference between me and this guy, according to this article, is that he is a retired Texas schoolteacher and I work in the entertainment industry. The DHS must love their cable TV.

No, it just sounds fishy. Either the story is made up, or there's a long backstory here that we're not getting. Otherwise this surveillance would appear to be basically random (targetting some people who make payments like this but not others), in which case they may as well just close their eyes, open a phone book and point to get their latest victim. Why even bother?

Sometimes I do get a little tired of seeing these conspiracy theory stories on/.

I won't comment on most of your post, but 3 things stand out that can't be left without answer.

How about the United State's ties to Europe? 911 sure helped damage those (or at least finally brought the problems to the surface)

After the september 11 attacks, NATO 'woke up' and activated the 'an attack against one is an attack against us all' article (article 5 if I'm not mistaken).

The USA government said 'no thanks'.

Years later, they had to come back to NATO because of not being able to handle Afghanistan alone.

Few people in Europe took issue with the Afghanistan invasion, many believed there was enough proof and enough reason to go there.

What did cause the trouble between the USA and Europe is:1. The refusal of the US government to involve NATO, and then comming back on that when they couldn't handle things (and still trying to hide the fact that they can't handle things)2. The Iraq invasion.

9/11 only has to do with this indirectly due to reason 1.The US government handling of those attacks and the Iraq invasion are the real problem there.

How about all the looney conspiracy theories? Can't say I've ever seen such a division amongst the American people since the civil war.

Try having a discussion about abortion, and you will see the same approx 50 50 split and the same fanatism... No, it is not new, has nothing to do with 9/11, and everything with a long standing 2 party system that does not allow for any 'middle ground' or nuance.

And how about civil liberties? For christ sakes, we have to actually consider a torture policy now.

No you don't. The only way to consider a torture policy is disbanding one. Any other 'considering' is a clear sign of tyrany.

If someone were involved in the shifting of huge amounts of funds around and planning the next WTC, Pentagon, Waco or Bali bombing, you mean you all wouldn't want to know about it?

Yes, if "knowing about it" means that the government has the financial transactions of hundreds of millions of citizens under a microscope at all times, in order to (not) catch a few terrorists here and there, I definitely don't want it. It's a huge expense to taxpayers, and a huge intrusion into citizen's privacy, for no real benefit.

Whenever people try to defend the latest ridiculous things that DHS is doing, they always trot out the line "but you want the government to catch terrorists, don't you?" That's a completely specious and indefensible argument; the government had more than enough information to catch the 9/11 terrorists before the act, and failed to do it because they had too much information and not enough ability (or willingness) to correlate it. Thus collecting MORE information is not the answer, especially since it encroaches that much more on the liberty of citizens.

Terrorism should not be dealt with differently than any other crime. As in, "innocent until proven guilty", and "better to let ten guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one innocent man". The Constitution requires search warrants for investigations of other crimes (though King George the W claims otherwise); they should be required for terrorism investigations as well, including searching financial transactions.

These "know your customer" banking regulations, the transaction reporting threshold, the instructions to report suspicious transactions even below that threshold, and the prohibition of "structuring" transactions all actually came about before 9/11, but have been stepped up significantly since then. The original rationale was the so-called "war on drugs". But that's not any better reason than the so-called "war on terrorists".

"They that can give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither."

What you need to do, Rebeka, is read John Stuart Mills' "On Liberty" (specifically Chapter IV [bartleby.com]). Then perhaps you will realise just how short sighted your thinking is. An inept bureacracy is just as bad if not worse than an actual conspiracy.

So, you'd have no complaints being audited by the IRS for your 'suspicious' behavior of having a home business that earns more than the average, even though it'll cost you a nice chunk of time and money? I mean, after all, you came out of things without any harm, survived the audit, right?

You wouldn't mind being detained in a holding cell for a day because some overzealous cop thought you 'looked suspicious'? I mean, you got released the next day, so no harm, no foul?

How about having the police raid your home because you've bought a little too much cold medicine over the past month, and you also happened to place an order for some beakers for a halloween party? Because, you might be running a meth lab, and so the cops were able to get a nearly unrestricted warrant on that alone? I mean, it's no big deal, other than the day of work you missed, the neighbors watching the police crawl all over your property, and all those entries in the public records.

Seems a little more scary, doesn't it?

It has nothing to do with being a conspiracy, and everything to do with a big-ass violation of the Bill of Rights. You, as a citizen, have a right to be secure in your papers and effects, which is why we have this whole warrant system. It's supposed to be that, if the cops want to poke into your business, they have to show probable cause to a judge, and everything is public record (so you can see what they're saying about you, basically).

Basically, it's a huge pain in the ass, so why go through it unless you really think the person is a criminal?

Now, your entire life is practically open; law enforcement has access to all of your financial records, including taxes and bank account information, and all without needing a warrant, as long as you violate some arbitrary criteria as to what 'normal' is. Does this help them catch criminals? I doubt it; I mean, the crooks dumb enough to be cooking meth in their kitchens don't usually give a damn about pyrex or lab safety equipment, and the guys smart enough to build nuclear weapons in their basement aren't going to try and buy their supplies at Home Depot.

Personally, I'd rather our law enforcement dollars were spent on, oh, education, especially in high-crime areas, and in prison reform, so that inmates came out of prison, well, reformed, rather than better-trained in being criminals.

So, yeah, all of this does scare and bother me, not because I think that there is any big conspiracy, but because the government is violating my rights in exchange for some illusion of safety.

Oh, I understand, but that's why we (in theory) have a represenative government -- to put supposedly wise people in between power and the slobbering masses. This is supposed to prevent decisions from being made impulsively by large-scale flash mobs.

Obviously, this isn't working, as politicans will more often than not encourage moblike behavior, because it makes it easier for them to get re-elected.

So I think that while the government *has* to do something, they shouldn't, because they're supposed to exercise more temperance and good judgement than Joe Sixpack. That way, the time can be taken to find effective solutions, and when the tide of 'do something, now!' blows over, the problem will actually be fixed.

...did not involve them being incarcerated, did not involve a police raid on his home, did not involve an unrestricted warrant on his property, did not have neighbours watching a raid and did not involve him missing work.

from the article: "Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up."

i can't speak for anyone else, but i know that a hold placed on my bank account would ruin me. i would not be able to pay rent, buy food. i would probably be evicted from my house.

all because some monkey raised a flag on a "suspicious" transaction.

true - nobody went to jail in this case... but you seem to not be accounting for how easily innocent lives can get screwed up when flags are raised and accounts locked.

from the article: "Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up."

And the idiotic thing about this is if the retired Texan schoolteacher had actually been planning buying a truckload of fertilizer and diesel and driving it into a church/mosque/synagogue/abortion clinic; he would have been alerted that the feds were onto him and gone undergound; or accelerated his plan to get it done before he was caught. So as an anti-terrorism measure, it's counter-productive.

wrong, the PRIVACY of a citizen is being violated without warrant, because the government thinks an honest person MIGHT now be a criminal. By default, is none of the government's damn business why a citizen should choose to move or spend a large amount of money.

I think you need to look up the definition of 'straw man'; I think that government access to financial records, which includes purcase records, mind you, was the topic.

Moreover, I hardly consider asking the government to abide by the Bill of Rights as an appeal to emotion, and I'd also think that suffices as a very concrete reason for being bothered. Nice try, though.

Of course, the person involved wasn't incarcerated, but they had to take time out of their normal daily lives to deal with overzealous law enforcement; that's potentially lost wages, a hell of a lot of stress, and a very big pile of resentment, because innocent people *really* *hate* being accused of a crime, and doubly so when the accusation is for an asinine reason.

More importantly, this guy did something small. Reeeeeeeeeeeally small. And he then had to justify his actions to law enforcement. What if he had done something only slightly more suspicious, like maybe paid off a few credit cards before nabbing some foreign currency for his upcoming vacation?

Now, here's the emotional part:

I am honestly scared every time I fly back into the U.S. I, personally, have never been mistreated by customs, but I've seen the harassment that more 'suspicious-looking' individuals have undergone, nevermind that I'm just as likely, if not more so, to be a terrorist as the Indian guy in line behind me.

I am really bothered that my countrymen see nothing wrong with ignoring the Constitution whenever convenient. That Americans like seeing all those new 'security measures' at the airport, nevermind that it means that I've got no choice but to check my bags in whenever I travel, because my nail clippers might be a 'deadly weapon of terrorism'. Of course, the wine bottle I've got on me is totally safe, and could never be used to hurt anyone...

More importantly, I'm really bothered that we pull stunts like this at home, along with the whole problem of not being able to run an election, while at the same time claiming abroad that we are 'champions of democracy and freedom'. People in other first-world countries don't hate Americans, but they certainly don't like our attitude when it comes to the soverignty of other countries.

I'm not saying that we're the worst, of course; the German government is very serious about making sure the Nazis never rise to power again, and I've had friends dragged in front of the police (German citizens) because they did something to tip off the Nazi-o-meter. But the Germans don't claim to be the 'Land of the Free', we do. Why don't we act like it?

MY money was being used to harass retired school teachers. That's MY money that could have been used to pay real cops a raise. That's MY money being used so that some DHS lackey can play Joe Friday and feel all detectivey. MY money could have gone towards having the army we wanted. MY money could have gone towards buying food for Wal-Mart employees (whoops, different rant).

But no, MY money was spent freezing the account of some little old man because he tried to pay his bill. MY money was spent to see if JC Penney was really a terrorist front. MY money was wasted.

1) It's a waste of resources. While we will probably never have a clear idea of the costs, it is not unfathomable that the overhead from such a program costs as much or more than the damage done to society through money laundering.

2) Nobody is innocent. Nobody is "not doing anything wrong." If you are honest and thorough, I'm sure you can find at least 5 regulations, rules, or flat-out laws that you've broken within the past week. The "If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about" argument is moot, since the number of people that statement describes is roughly 0.

3) Requiring burdensome reports for transactions over $10,000 (yes, that's the limit) encourages noncompliance. If the choice is "Deposit $12,000 and spend an hour filling out paperwork" or "Deposit $6k twice and fill out zero paperwork," many people are going to choose the latter. It's like McDonalds. Double cheeseburgers are $.99, but single cheeseburgers are $1.09. Who's going to pay more to get less? Conversely, who's going to go through more effort just to receive greater scrutiny?

4) Let's face it: The people being caught by transaction monitoring are white collar criminals. The people benefitting from such protection are large corporations. As Jon Stewart said last night at the Oscars: "Movie piracy is wrong. Just look what you're doing to the people in this room. Many of the women can barely afford enough clothing to cover their breasts." That's not an excuse, just a reminder to keep things in perspective.

Vhat you hav to realise is none of tis means anything. So KGB be notified. So they have a look at your bumagi. So they notice nothing be wrong, they go away.

Vhat the problem? It be age old statement that defeats conspiracy theorists, they who convinced the government is going to imprison all good Soviets vhile the real reactionaries run free.

"If you not doing anything vrong, you hav nothing to vorry about."

Tink about it. If someone vere involved in the shifting of huge amount of funds around and planning the next Trotskyte terror campaign, subversive sabotage or bombing, you mean all would not want to know about it? Phew! You be joker.

============

Absolutely, I haf been telling zis to my Komraden for all zis time!

What you haf to realize is none of zis means anyzing. So ze Gestapo is notified. So zey haf a look at your recorden. So zey eventually notice nozing is vrong, and zey go away.

What iz ze problem? Again it comez down to ze age old statement zat defeats ze conspiracy zeorists who are convinced ze government is going to imprizon all good Germans while ze real Communisten und Juden run free.

"Iv you are not doing anyzing vrong, you haf nozing to worry about."

Zink about it. If someone vere involved in ze shifting of huge amounts of funds around und planning ze next Burning of the Reichstag or bombing of ze train tracks carrying our heroic troops in Polen, you mean you all vouldn't vant to know about it? Jaaa. Right.

"If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

This is the most naive, despicably un-American sentiment of all the tripe that's thrown around in this charade that is post-9/11 paranoia.

I'm sorry for being ad hominem, but please, try to use your imagination here.

This sheep-like "nothing bad happens to good people" mentality is the type of smug, head-in-the-sand mentality that destroys free society. My folks emigrated from behind the "Iron Curtain" in the late 60s exactly to escape the sort of propoganda and easy government-sanctioned persecution that I see creeping up all around us. Let me tell you stories about family and friends fired, harrassed, jailed, and yeah, even tortured because their actions were "misinterpreted", Sometimes they were released without apology a few months later, sometimes not. Sometimes the reason for the police action was political. Sometimes they were framed by competitors. Sometimes they were "snitched" on by neighbors with vendettas. Sometimes they just had the wrong guy. When paranoia rules and every out-of-step behavior is potentially subversive (or "terroristic") it's pretty easy to wreak havoc with people's lives, either intentionally or not.

But that doesn't happen here, right? You wouldn't get labeled terrorist and jailed indefinitely for something as silly as trolling unsavory websites right? [64.233.179.104] Or be charged with a crime and have your property destroyed because you had a stupid bumper sticker, right? [columbusdispatch.com] And we'd never get so paranoid about air travel as to make a mother drink her own breast milk [usatoday.com] to prove its safe before boarding a plane, or maybe create a secret no-fly list that is impossible to audit or even acknowledge but sometimes bars toddlers from flying because they might be terrorists [usatoday.com] (along with hundreds of others, including members of Congress), right? I mean, these are good people who didn't do anything wrong. I can't imagine that there'd be a slew of kafkaesque civil rights abuses that an internal Justice Dept. [cbsnews.com] investigation might uncover [cnn.com], right? (I won't even touch domestic wiretapping) I mean, those who have nothing to fear have nothing to hide, right? Right.

These are just small examples, and maybe not even very good one. And maybe you'll never inconvenienced like the couple in this story. But who knows. Maybe you'll be the victim of identity theft, or even framed.. Maybe you'll have to engage in some bizzare but innocent behavior. Maybe you'll want to voice an unpopular opinion, or go read/hear someone else's horrible and unpopular opinion. Or maybe it'll just be some bureaucratic "oops". But, if it does happen, and YOU find yourself interrogated by the FBI, or forced to explain some blotch on your record for the rest of your life, or maybe even jailed without charge for a few months, then you come tell me how, sure, maybe you lost three months of your life in a cell being molested by thugs, but hey, at the end, everyone figured out it was just a big mistake. So really, it was OK. We're all safer for it. God bless America.

Maynard: It reads, "Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of uuggggggh".Arthur: What?Maynard: "...the Castle of uuggggggh".Bedevere: What is that?Maynard: He must have died while carving it.Lancelot: Oh, come on!Maynard: Well, that's what it says.Arthur: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve "uuggggh". He'd just say it!Maynard: Well, that's what's carved in the rock!

Seriously, it's getting pretty bad. Everything you have to notify the government for.

When I was flying back from Europe, I had to fill out a form with who I was, and my home address, and an emergency contact (if I so wished).

They set it up like it's some sort of idea that all flights into the US require all US citizens to be recognized and accounted for, so that if it goes down? or something like that? that they can know for sure who was on board, and can start contacting people ahead of time?

The requirements for entering the US are so ridiculously more complex than any other country I've visited.

The requirements for entering the US are so ridiculously more complex than any other country I've visited.

Obviously you haven't been doing much traveling. Check out Cuba, Nicaragua, Israel, Croatia (until recently), etc. No matter where I've been the U.S. has always welcomed me back with open arms compared to some of the places I've traveled.

Obviously you haven't been doing much traveling. Check out Cuba...No matter where I've been the U.S. has always welcomed me back with open arms

I'm assuming from the way you worded your post you're a US citizen. If you're not a citizen, well, the following only really applies to citizens and you can read about how the US so warmly treats its citizens that travel there.

The US does NOT welcome you back from a trip to Cuba with welcome arms unless you either have a license to travel there from OFAC, or if you went there quietly and never mentioned it to immigration.

If you go to Cuba without a license (eg to visit your dying grandfather), and are honest enough to tell immigration about it when you come back into the USA, you get a big Illegal CUBA stamp on your passport, and then get a friendly threatening letter from OFAC a few months down the line. Sometimes they'll 'nicely' let the problem disappear for a $10,000 fine. That's a nice pair of welcoming open arms there, pal.

And the open arms aren't necessarily guaranteed even if your travel to cuba is licensed. I've travelled to Cuba twice, both time perfectly legally as licensed with OFAC. One of those times we first flew to Canada, then to Cuba. Believe it or not that was the easier way to go. The more difficult way involved flying to Miami first, and then dealing with the absolute worst set of red tape I've ever dealt with in any travel. If going out wasn't bad enough, coming back through Miami was absolutely horrible, when my girlfriend and I didn't join in the immigration official's anti-communist tirade, he sent us and our luggage to be hand-inspected for evidence of illegal farm visits. Again, nice open arms there.

And to anyone reading this, if you are issued a license to go to Cuba, think seriously about going through Canada (or Mexico) first, instead of flying through Miami, it will really make your life much easier.

Obviously you haven't been doing much traveling. Check out Cuba, Nicaragua, Israel, Croatia (until recently), etc. No matter where I've been the U.S. has always welcomed me back with open arms compared to some of the places I've traveled.

Just think about what you've written. You're saying the US is not so bad, not compared to Cuba, Nicaragua, Croatia, Israel. If you're trying to say that the US is not such a fortress state and in doing so favourably compare it to countries like Cuba or Nicaragua, or countries undergoing as much *real* terrorism as Israel, or countries with such recent mass-conflicts such as Croatia, then you're not doing a very favourable comparison.

Quoting from Capitol Hill Blue is like quoting from the Weekly World News. It's reputation for accuracy is at about the same level. I'm surprised that it was not bat boy that had the run-in with the law.

Is there another source for this information? Quoting from CHB tells us more about the submitter and the submitter's reading habits than anything factual about the story.

Everyone on/. send me a dollar. I will apply it to one of my credit cards and then we will see how quickly the FBI shows up. I don't mind taking the hit. So as soon as I collect a dollar from everyone I will make the payment. Not a problem. Glad to do it. It's all for the experiment.

This article is sickening. I understand that there is a need for watching large amounts of money that trade hands, but c'mon, we're now starting to scrutinize people who work to pay off their debts? If they're tracking us enough that they know on average how much we pay on credit cards per month, you'd think that the (insert government/corporate monicker here) would have an idea that people would like to get out of high-interest credit cards.

Personally I think this sounds like a poorly-shrouded excuse for this credit card company (among others?) to scrutinize their customer's finances and try to intimidate them into staying in debt for longer periods of time. Sickening IMHO.

This isn't even about terrorism, this is part of the War On Some Drugs. This is "Know Your Customer" from years ago, been going on over a decade in one form or another.

Any unexpected transaction these days gets the once over, any cash purchase over X gets reported to the FBI. (Last I heard, X was $10K) Buy a car with cash, get investigated. Walk into an airport with a sack of cash and it will simply be taken, no appeals, no trial, no recourse. Simply being in an airport with cash is a crime subject to asset forfeiture. Bitch too loud and they will simply arrest you along with the money. Been that way since the '80s.

The real story here is that the Department of Homeland Security is also responsible for credit fraud. One of the scams people pull is to steal a number, write a bogus check to the credit card company for that card (which guarantees the credit will be there), and then spend the amount that was written on the check before the check is cashed (and detected as bogus).

The auto-trip flag for this is that when a large payment comes in that's many multiples of the payee's normal history, the credit card company will hold the payment until the check clears, which is within 10 days at the outside.

In other words, this has nothing to do with terrorism, the fascist Bush regime, the gestapo at DHS, or any other Orwellian fantasy you can cook up. It's an arguably poor fraud prevention measure, nothing more.

I can't speak to DHS involvement, but I can personally attest to having my credit card frozen after making an unusually large payment. I wanted to buy my fiancee an engagement ring, but knew my line of credit was more than the cost of the ring. So, I called my credit card (issued by "Bank One First USA JP Morgan Chase" at last check) and asked if I can make a purchase over my credit limit by pre-paying the amount of the purchase. They said "Yes." So, I sent an electronic payment for $15k. The next day when trying to buy gas with the credit card, I found the card account frozen! This was the last thing I expected. I called the CC company and asked what was going on. They explained that due to the unusually large payment, they froze the account. (Why not just not give me access to the added funds until they can verify them?) It took me hours on the phone with the CC supervisor and a conference call to the bank from which I'd transferred in the money before they even unfroze my account. In the end, they _still_ wouldn't let me purchase the ring, regardless of the ample credit balance, because "the transaction amount is over your credit limit". (Apparently, the first CC customer service rep. that I had spoken with was wrong.)

Anyway, I don't have a problem with this because it was the CC's decision, not the goverment's decision, to freeze my account. I let the market forces go to work... and stopped doing business with that credit card company (as soon as I got my money back).

It sneaks up on you. Many, many years ago, I opened a bank account; nobody asked what I did for a living, nobody asked where the money came from. Several years ago, my wife and I got a small safety deposit box for wedding/engagement ring storage, and the questions went on and on, esp. regarding my wife's self-employed status. Now I read a story about folks paying off a credit card debt that they could afford to pay off, and having their assets frozen. In a few years, will I go into the bank attempting to transfer funds between accounts, only to find everything frozen while they do a background check?

I predict that wall safes and such are going to come back in style one of these days, and (esp. considering interest rates on accounts being negligible) bank accounts are going to be the place exclusively for money that's moving, not money that's being saved.

This same thing happened to me. I inherited some money when my mom died, so a couple of months ago, I paid off my $7500 credit card balance, I mailed them a check for the full amount. About a week later, the payment still wasn't credited, so I called them and they said it takes 7 to 10 days for such a large check to clear. Yeah right. They told me to call back if it wasn't credited after 10 days. It wasn't, I called back again, they said if it wasn't credited after 14 days, call back again. It wasn't, I called back again. THIS time, I insisted they get a 3 way call with my bank to confirm the check had cleared. They credited my account during the phone call.But after reading the article about the guy who got turned in to Homeland Security for paying $6500 on his JCPenneys account, now it all makes sense. I saw another version of this news article, it said the "bank security act" requires credit card companies to report large payments. I can't find any such law, there's a Bank Security Act of 1974 but that far predates the existence of Homeland Security. The closest regulation I can find is the requirement to report cash transactions larger than $10k to the IRS.This is all so much bullshit I can't believe it. It's some sort of secret law, or more likely Homeland Security has duped banks into playing along with an imaginary law, just to get more data on totally innocent people. I am infuriated. I can't wait to see what happens when I try to board an airplane, now that DHS thinks I'm a terrorist, I bet I'm on the No Fly List.

I figure I paid about $65 in extra interest charges over the 2 week hold period. But there are strict regulations on credit card payments. I recall reading regulations that they have to credit your account as of the postmarked date, if you send a check by mail, although they don't have to release your credit limit until they're sure the check cleared. This is to prevent them from grabbing more interest by kiting your check, or from zinging you with extra late fees while they hold your payment an arbitrary time. It seems to me the CC company violated this regulation in my case.

Of course the feds are interested in the movement of money over x. And I see that there are plenty of readers eager to justify the monitoring of citizens all in the name of security.

It is interesting that the justifications that existed when the level of x was thousands of dollars are now quoted when x is hundreds, when in theory, the effects of inflation should cause x to increase.

In a few years, as technology, and data storage, and indexing allows, all transactions will be reported, catalogued, and analyzed, all in the name of security, and there will be plenty of readers that will be happy to step up to the plate and explain the justifications.

The real reasons of course are about control of the masses, and to maintain authority by reminding all citizens that they are being watched and can be brought in to explain their actions and transactions at any time should their activity, be it financial or political opinion, raise an eyebrow in Washington, or the local town hall.

While this particular example of credit card activity may or may not have occurred, the interesting point is that the assumption is that if someone's financial activity appears to change to a third party, the first party must explain their behaviour, as if there is a presumption of wrong doing.

This is in opposition to the principals set forth in the Bill of Rights and the forth amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Since there is no probable cause to believe that a person with $600 or some other arbitrary amount has acquired the funds through illicit mechanisms, requiring the person to provide documentary evidence is clearly an illegal search and seizure.

This also may be a violation of the tenth amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"

Since the ability to keep tabs and monitor the general population is not expressly granted to the federal government by the constitution, such activity must be the domain of the states. This is why the feds now claim that this is part of the "war against terrorism" to create a federal interest in monitoring of ordinary citizens, just like the illegal wiretapping of ordinary citizens phoning back to the old country.

The future is bleak, and the trends before us further demonstrate that these United States have continually moved from a democratic republic for the people, by the people, to a fascist state that operates in the interest of the new aristocracy, let's not forget that the most interesting of all financial transactions are the least scrutinized.

Has any else noticed the huge transfer of wealth from public coffers to private hands..? (hint: it was more than 600 bucks).

These things are really bipartisan with 9/11 just advancing what would have slowly occurred over the next 20 years to occur within just a few.
Prior to 9/11 and during the 90s they used things like "It is for the children", to pass laws like these. For example during the Clinton years we had the bipartisan "1996 Welfare Reform Act". What most Americans do not realize that Act created the single most invasion of every Americans privacy in history. (enacted long before 9/11).
Due to the Welfare Reform Act every employer is required to report their employees (or face fines) to the new hires database. The new hires database is used to track where Americans citizens are working at all times in case they ever father or mother a child. Therefore the used for the purpose of locating you for lifestyle child support collection.

There weren't any cells in the U.S.They've only charged ten men in the entire gulag system they've built around the world. And those aren't exactly airtight cases.Over thirty men have died from "stress" during imprisonment and torture. None were charged.They've not arrested a single man who actually plotted 9/11. They've bodyguards, drivers, one guy who wore a wristwatch "similar to those worn by terrorists". The bulk of those picked up in Afghanistan were fingered by enemies of the fingered who also got a fat cash payoff for giving up "terrorists".

The main reason is that the actual terrorists died in the planes. The second reason is that Bin Laden et al had a month to evacuate Afghanistan before we started bombing the poor bastards who had nothing to do with 9/11.

So, no terrorists. We've suspended the constitution, created a Gestapo, and are building Prison America to keep ourselves safe. And we've nothing to show for it.

bin Laden got what he wanted: the removal of the U.S. military bases from holy Saudi Arabian soil, and the provocation of the U.S. invading the middle east. He's really no more reason to hit us. Why bother? We've turned every muslim in the damned world against us. He got a lot for his money.

Perhaps Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11? This is quite the opposite of what most everyone seems to assume, but when the FBI's suspected suicidal hijackers start turning up alive after 9/11, I think we have to question their whole case:

And that is hardly the end of the problems with the official story of 9/11. There are plenty of sites that have raised legitimate issues with regards to the nature of the WTC building collapses (3 buildings suffered complete, symmetric collapses that resembled controlled demolitions) and the "failure" of the air-intercept system.

While the above may seem to be off-topic, consider what has been justified on the basis of the official story. Shouldn't we be a little more sceptical of this version of events, as it is often the justification for so much that goes on?

Anyone who votes for a bill that would allow this is in violation of his or her constitutional duties. There's a word for that, and it's the only crime defined by the constitution itself. Well, we're constantly being told we're at war, and guess what? In wartime, treason is a capital crime. I'm deadly serious: any congressman or senator who voted for this should be immediately tried for treason, convicted automatically, and executed. It's time to quit fucking around and take back control of the government. Do you hear me, Congress? You deserve to be punished for this crime. You deserve to DIE. Voting you out is not enough; history has shown that people are stupid enough to vote for whoever puts his face on TV. Sending you to jail is not enough; that example has been made again and again to no effect. I'm sick of it. You'll have your due process, you'll have your day in court, and then you'll get a needle in the arm, which is exactly what you deserve for your profoundly unamerican, illegal, and immoral actions. You are beneath contempt. You are beneath hatred. You have forfeited the right to life by your infringements on the just, guaranteed rights of those you are sworn to serve. There can be no lower scum, no more pathetic, miserable human refuse. Only the Law, which unlike you I am compelled to respect, will save you from the cruel, hideous torture you've so richly earned.

Think I'm extreme? What have your moderate views and voting choices done for us? They've gotten us here, that's what. Time for a change. Turn off the TV, forget about "compromise," and quit worrying about "wasting your vote." If what we have now isn't the result of wasted votes, I don't know what would be. Vote Libertarian. Vote independent. Run for office yourself. Ask your state to call for a constitutional convention. Won't do it? Ask yourself this: What would make you change the way you think, vote, and live if not the things you've seen, read, and heard about our government from reliable sources in the past 5 years? WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE PEOPLE YOU'RE VOTING FOR DO NOT SERVE YOUR INTERESTS?

...more than anyone else, you mean.
This kind of behaviour means we're all living under an implicit cloud of suspicion -- if we weren't suspect, what valid cause would there be for interference? My personal financial matters are my own personal financial matters, and why a transaction between myself and an entity I happen to contract with to keep my money has any business being audited by a government entity charged with "homeland security" -- well, it wants something by way of explanation.

I have no idea why a much larger than normal payment would trigger red flags for suspicious behavior.

The question is what did you do to get all this extra money? Did you commit a crime? Or did someone of disrepute give you the money to launder?

The purpose of these laws is to make a big stack of cash relatively useless. That helps make stealing or otherwise illegitimately "earning" a big stack of cash less inviting. Sure, you can steal a million dollars, but then you can't do anything with it.

The purpose of these laws is to make a big stack of cash relatively useless. That helps make stealing or otherwise illegitimately "earning" a big stack of cash less inviting. Sure, you can steal a million dollars, but then you can't do anything with it.

Actually, this seems to be the arguement. But in reality the organized crime that not so surprisingly infests a good portion of the commerce in this country has ways to deal (think: someone on the payroll + proper response strategy to launder the ill-gotten goods) with these kinds of problems... it's just the small-timers that are caught.

In the end it's our freedoms that are trampled on, and those are going to be hard, if impossible to ever win back... especially since now, anything related to "terrorism" has effectively no oversight or appeal.

I twice have purchased a new car at the dealer by writing a five-figure check for the full amount before driving away. I had no problems either time.

You wired the money... Two cars ago I paid for a nice car with cash. I had the money at hand, depositing checks from multiple accounts, only to have some clown try to charge me for a cashiers check and hassle me about when funds were ready (moving from accounts within the same bank) because they had to certify things. I was certified or at least fit to be tied - so I said fine - I'm not paying for a check, give it to me in cash. (for the record, my bride said it was a bad idea) I expected hassles from the bank, who delayed, had me fill out forms, and do a thumbprint.

The car dealership were the once that surprised me. Seems spending a healthy amount of cash for a car set off flags there as well. They asked if I could deposit the money and write a check! Several forms later, and a 'I told you so...' I had the car. Pre-war on Eurasia, so I suspect things are worse today.

The construction company where I work has never been asked to report five figure checks, and we get them all the time.

Bob Kerr's column is full of stories like this. Some are more believable than others. This one lacks substantiating evidence, and is pretty tough to believe without it. Since 9/11, I've made transactions like that, and I'm not even old and retired; I'm young and can barely make the payments on my raised ranch...I've never had this sort of problem.

Why would the company not post the transaction while they investigate? Wouldn't it make more sense to NOT alert "terrorists" that they're suspects?

I'd like to see some proof, so I'll know to be properly scared when I pay off credit cards.

And perhaps you are willing to wink at criminal behaviour so that you can secretly wire a few thousand quid to your mistress without having a few questions raised. I am not.

And here we have it, folks. That fantastic attitude called "If you don't like it, you must be doing something wrong". Every scare and people like you grant the government more power to brighten your fucking night light. It's okay to trample our civil liberties as long as those nasty drug traffickers are brought to justice.